The Surprising Thing You Can Learn From Donald Trump’s Hair Color

Sarah Silverman called the color “Tuscan surprise.” Helen Mirren likened it to an Aperol spritz. His longtime physician said it’s a welcome side effect of the prostate-related drug Propecia. Many people have sought to understand Donald Trump’s hair over the years; none have succeeded. But, in an excerpt from journalist Michael Wolff’s upcoming book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White Housepublished in New York ‘s Daily Intelligencer, the author seems to have gained new insight into at least one aspect of the President’s often mystifying ‘do: its unique color.

Cracking the case wasn’t easy. As reported by New York, Wolff conducted over 200 conversations and interviews over a period of 18 months, meeting with the President, most of his senior staff, and other supporting cast members of the White House, giving him an unprecedented “front-row view” thanks in part to the new administration’s “lack of experience and disdain for political norms.” The lines between on-the-record and off were blurred; there were no “ground rules” as to what Wolff could and could not access. Which, apparently, is how one ends up with a gem such as this:

“[Ivanka] treated her father with a degree of detachment, even irony, going so far as to make fun of his comb-over to others. She often described the mechanics behind it to friends: an absolutely clean pate — a contained island after scalp-reduction ­surgery — surrounded by a furry circle of hair around the sides and front, from which all ends are drawn up to meet in the center and then swept back and secured by a stiffening spray. The color, she would point out to comical effect, was from a product called Just for Men — the longer it was left on, the darker it got. Impatience resulted in Trump’s orange-blond hair color.”

Unable to let the color sit for the full five minutes recommended on the box without getting agitated, Trump is left with his signature shade of warm, orange-tinged beige. And while that color is widely considered undesirable and even unsettling, Wolff’s findings suggest it’s not the orange we should be scared of. Rather, like a barometer for his short fuse, the less pigmented Trump’s hair, the more impatient he must have been that day — and the more impatient the sitting President, the more likely he is to impulsively smash that big, powerful, fully functioning nuclear war button. A comforting thought, indeed.